thebes11

You kids and your jazz music.....

Look what you've done to me. So I decide to crawl around behind my deck to check out the plants, and I see these little guys....



My first pups! Should I keep them there, and turn the back of the deck into a crowded banana forest, or should I let them grow up a bit and move them to another part of the yard? Decisions, decisions.....

As I walk a bit further, I saw something suspicious behind one of my bushes....


Looks like a banana plant to me. Is it? It has some red coloring on the leaves, so I think it's a different type if it is a banana plant.

And since some of you took interest in the signs you could see in another photo, here's a horrible picture of my tiki bar deck with my budding sign collection.


I built that bar myself complete with electricity powering lights, the fan and three refrigerators!


The pics will get better when my new camera gets here, I promise.

hydrojeff

your tiki bar is very nice, the nana plant with red on them are probabley some sort of cavendish, if there not getting full sun i would dig them up and move them, very nice yard.....

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dablo93

nice yard!
funny that there's just growing a dwarf cavendish in your garden!

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thebes11

The only think I can figure is that's the area where my dog used to try and dig out. I always used whatever dirt I could find to fill the hole below the fence. I'm sure I would have thrown the excess dirt from the plastic pots my plants came in over there. Perhaps there was something in that dirt?

It is literally wedged between a bush and my fence, I had to hold back branches from the bush to get the picture.

mskitty38583

when did you say the bbq was??? lol! i love the tiki bar, i want one in my yard...but thats another project, and i have 5 projects ahead of that one lol!. i would leave the pups on the mom till they get at least a foot tall, then move them or leave them.

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WELCOME TO THE GATOR NATION

bencelest

Nice set up. I might build one in my backyard and copy yours. I hope you don't mind. Is it copyrighted?
Howmany poles holding the roof?
They defy gravity seems like.

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Banana Nut

thebes11

Copy all you want, it's actually pretty easy to build.

Four 4x4 posts sunk 6 feet deep. The front ones area bout 10 ft. high, the back ones 8. They are about 10 feet apart side to side and 8 feet front to back. I then secured 1 4x4x16 between the two front ones, and another between the two back ones. The horizontal sits on top of the verticals.

Next, I spaced 2x4x16's on top of the two vertical 4x4's giving me two foot slope drop over 8 feet, no problem with water draining on this puppy! I used 11 2x4's to get all the way across. I then used two 2x4x16's to cap the but ends front and back (I mitered the ends of all the 2x4's so the all the ends were perpendicular to the ground). Topped it off with plywood, roofing paper and shingles, and I though I was done.

Thing wobbled like crazy when I was on top putting on the shingles. To sure it up, I bolted a 2x12 between the front and back 4x4's on each side, and then bolted 2x8's from the front post forward at a 45 degree angle to the roof and bolted the other end to a 2x4. This gave me more front support since the roof overhangs the front horizontal 4x4 a lot more than it does in back.

That thing isn't going anywhere. It's withstood 70 mph winds already and I didn't even lose a shingle. If you don't count roofing nails, the sum total of nails used to build the deck, the bar and the roof is ZERO. It's all screws and lag bolts.

BTW, the deck is not built into the ground. In everything you see, the only permanant, ground mounted items are the four posts holding up the roof (so my property taxes did not increase at all!)

I built the deck using deck blocks. Similar to this:


But I leveled the ground so I didn't have to raise any part of the deck using the 4x4's on top of the blocks. I'll take more detailed pictures when I get my camera so you can see it really isn't that difficult.

Now, to make this banana related, I'm going to pot some banana trees and put them on the deck in strategic locations. Will the dwarf cavendish look good in a pot?

Finally, if any of you come to Jacksonville, your first drink at the bar is free!

Sailfish

Very kewl bar

Nancy

Interesting mystery how those partially red bananas popped up. What do the undersides of the leaves look like -- are they green or also significantly red?

thebes11

They are totally green on the back.

Nancy

Okay, green undersides rules out the alternatives I was thinking of. My cavendish don't have a speck of red on them, but they get a lot of sun. I don't know what they'd do in the shade.

island cassie

Ok gang - the next party is at Gary's place - with a yard and a bar like that it will be a blast. I'll bring the margaritas!!

Cassie

CookieCows

I've already sent the link to this thread to my hubby .... I want a tiki bar deck like yours too!! Those bananas really set the stage. We just got done sitting outside talking about where to put it! But like MsKitty, we have projects in line.

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natedogg1026

Gary, The Tiki bar is bad a%#! I love it. Congrats on your pups.-Nate

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Banana's are a safe addiction. Right?Maybe I need classes.

bencelest

Thanks for a detailed explanation.
I will save your info for my future project.

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Banana Nut

thebes11

Here is a picture of the underside of the leaf of my rogue naner:



I'm a bit concerned after noticing leaf damage. Could it be from not enough sunlight and too much moisture? I'm going to move them to the sun this weekend.


Notice in particular, the damage on the bottom leaf. Looks like something is eating into the leaf.

The bloom on my orinoco (btw, it it OR-in-ico, or-IN-ico -or- or-in-ICO?) is doing quite well! I'm Excited about getting bananas.



On a down note, one of the plants had the new leaf growing from the middle break about 2 inches above where it came out from the plant. I don't know why, didn't get real windy, and most of my leaves are still un-shredded. The leaf does appear to be quite a bit larger than most of the others. What should I do?



Tell you what Cassie, you take me diving in the DR and I'll make you all the margaritas you want here in FL!

Thanks to everyone for the comments about my yard. Melissa (my wife) and I love to entertain and living in FL, we'd much rather be outside than in. Here's a picture of a small gathering a couple of years ago (noticeably less signs):



Notice this was before I built the nicer bar (I did that this spring as a surprise for my wife, she hated the bamboo ones, the urethane was flaking off everywhere). Speaking of my wife Melissa, that's here in the black top, dead center of the picture.

On a banana note, they are behind the deck, just laying on their sides, not having cleared the fence when I tried to heave them into the woods!

CookieCows

You don't by any chance have a new leaf emerging right there at the base where your leaf broke off? I'm asking because I just had a big leaf break off of my saba like that. I thought it might have been chewed but there isn't any sign of that and no wind to speak of but what I thought was growth from the old leaf still emerging from the base turned out to be a new leave pushing out the next morning. Am wondering if it could have put pressure on the leaf that broke?

Deb

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thebes11

I cut the leaf off this morning, and it does not appear to have a new one growing yet....

island cassie

Haha Gary - deal!!

As far as the leaf breaking goes - I think it just happens occasionally. I had a brand new leaf on my tall red just break off where it emerges from the base, and I wondered if they are just slightly soft and have not had time to harden up.

Cassie